Went into this thread with a "oh here we go again" type attitude, ready to facepalm.

However, I was wrong - your ideas, frankly look amazing. I'd totally welcome this as an addition to the DK arsenal. The reason I like these ideas so much is probably because it wouldn't be another "stand and heal shit" type class but a support role that could still deal moderate damage while bringing some interesting and useful raid cooldowns. Summoning healing valkyrs, exploding minions to heal people, healing (or maybe shielding, disc style) with death coil.

Nice idea, but personally I'd never play one. For me, there's a reason for the "death" in Death Knight; Death Knights are killers, plain and simple. I like the idea of summoning Valkyrs though, very nice.

"Tell them only that Kael'thas is dead...and that Illidan Stormrage...died with him...for this setback, we were NOT prepared..."

imo, this just wont happen. you'll have dk's needing on plate gear, rings, trinkets & weapons just because they can, saying "oh, im needing that for os". you see it all the time now with ppl needing dps gear when they're tanks. if they do that bs to people who have been playing healers for years, there will be a massive outcry.

imo, this just wont happen. you'll have dk's needing on plate gear, rings, trinkets & weapons just because they can, saying "oh, im needing that for os". you see it all the time now. if they do that bs to people who have been playing healers for years, there will be a massive outcry.

Like this is not possible already especially with Paladins. all plate gear belongs to them anyway.

with that said i would love to play one. and i must say its well thought out so far.

1st, I gotta hand it out to you, mate, the idea itself is well rounded and seems like you've gone through some lenghts of hard thinking to come out with all that. Grats for the effort at least...

BUT

Originally Posted by delyian

Now, let's consider what death knights are supposed to be... Essentially Corrupted, fallen paladins controlled and empowered with demonic shadow powers. So... You want to take something that is essentially a shadow paladin of doom, and remove the 'I am a bad-arse death knight who will bash your head in' aspect.

Could have just written something in a different set of words, but it would sound the same. Death Knights are *evil*. Not evil as in the "bad guys", but they are walking around doing stuff through the infusion of unholy powers. They cheat death (blood, in this case) by bending their power to leech out life essence from enemies and revitalizing their own. Its not like they can create healthy energy to infuse into others or some crap like that.

The concept itself is interesting, I admit it, but even if you take Delyian's lore explanation for Paladins into account, at the very least, Paladins actually have access to holy powers of good bullsh*tty nonsense... To use that to heal someone other than themselves is just a matter of learning how to channel that holy power into others.

By that account you could argue that since Death Knights are "kind of undead", and that they bend unholy evil demonic powers to heal themselves while taking life away from enemies, that they should not get healled or benefit in the same way from holy powers. Ohhh... Yeah, you forgot the part where they are not undead (they even have a specific talent to allow them to *become undead* for a short duration, in which I always thought they should NOT be healed from holy stuff), they just don't have access to mystic forest powers or special water powers or healing voodoo powers and most certainly to holy powers. Therefore, its waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too farfetched to allow them to be healers.

Our blood worms heal people
In the past rune tap could heal the raid
Mark of blood used to heal people
Our death coil can shield allies
AMZ can shield allies
Horn of winter buffs the raid

I don't think it's as far fetched as people think - Blizzard control the class that they have created, if they liked the idea you could guarantee they'd fit it into "lore" somehow.

These are all abilities and concepts that almost every class has. Now, granted there's absolutely nothing wrong with that - but if DK's suddenly become able to heal next you'll be having warlocks, rogues, hunters, and warriors healing too - because they all have similar abilities. Every class has some form of self-healing / emergency shielding / buff / etc...

Now... If you were to focus on those abilities and make using them your primary role - you could in theory create a new role that would essentially be a synergist or augmenter. A role that is NOT a healer, but instead someone who provides additional support to other classes, while still maintaining their position as a DPS. These individuals would be the ones primarily responsible for major cooldowns - whereas the main DPS would not have access to these abilities.

That concept would obviously never happen in WoW. Blizzard has tried tremendously to adhere to the 'bring the player, not the class' concept - and would not be adding an an entirely new role that people were essentially forced to bring.

---------- Post added 2013-04-26 at 11:48 AM ----------

Originally Posted by mrmallacath

Could have just written something in a different set of words, but it would sound the same. Death Knights are *evil*. Not evil as in the "bad guys", but they are walking around doing stuff through the infusion of unholy powers. They cheat death (blood, in this case) by bending their power to leech out life essence from enemies and revitalizing their own. Its not like they can create healthy energy to infuse into others or some crap like that.

The concept itself is interesting, I admit it, but even if you take Delyian's lore explanation for Paladins into account, at the very least, Paladins actually have access to holy powers of good bullsh*tty nonsense... To use that to heal someone other than themselves is just a matter of learning how to channel that holy power into others.

I've been accused of being long-winded.

But yes... what I was going for was this --> Death Knights are *evil*. Not evil as in the "bad guys", but they are walking around doing stuff through the infusion of unholy powers.

These are all abilities and concepts that almost every class has. Now, granted there's absolutely nothing wrong with that - but if DK's suddenly become able to heal next you'll be having warlocks, rogues, hunters, and warriors healing too - because they all have similar abilities. Every class has some form of self-healing / emergency shielding / buff / etc...

Now... If you were to focus on those abilities and make using them your primary role - you could in theory create a new role that would essentially be a synergist or augmenter. A role that is NOT a healer, but instead someone who provides additional support to other classes, while still maintaining their position as a DPS. These individuals would be the ones primarily responsible for major cooldowns - whereas the main DPS would not have access to these abilities.

That concept would obviously never happen in WoW. Blizzard has tried tremendously to adhere to the 'bring the player, not the class' concept - and would not be adding an an entirely new role that people were essentially forced to bring.

Yeah, I agree to an extent - We're not going to see bards and whatnot any time soon. The examples I provided were directed more towards the people saying "DKs don't have any place as a healer, they're evil/unholy/lords of undeath etc", whereas we've actually had quite a few helpful/healing abilities throughout our various iterations. Of the examples given by the OP only a few are direct healing spells and some could be altered to be protection or shielding abilities. Having healing/shielding done by sacrificing minions or blood worms, summoning valkyrs, placing marks of blood on enemies, creating helpful defile or void zone areas, increasing the amount a friendly death coil could shield, transferring health from enemies to the raid etc could work within the boundaries of the established "holy trinity" because it wouldn't be massively different to what fistweaving or atonement healing bring to a raid.

Essentially you would be part healer, part DPS - jack of all trades, master of none. It would also give pro guild groups the chance to drop a dedicated healer for quicker kills or to meet enrage timers and good/average guilds the chance to meet some healing shortfalls during some encounters. Either way the class wouldn't be essential. Anyway, great idea!